Chairman Lindsey Graham appears on late-night-interuptus to discuss his Senate Judiciary investigation into allegations of FISA abuse, etc.

Ten days ago the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Mali warned every American to avoid any travel to Mali and specifically to avoid any resort, hotel or venue without high security: “Avoid vulnerable locations with poor security measures in place, including hotels, restaurants, and churches.”

The U.S. State Department specifically warned of al-Qaeda (AQIM) attacks and kidnapping: “In the border regions shared by Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, extremist groups and linked criminal networks have targeted Westerners for kidnapping.”

Today, a holiday resort in Mali popular with Western tourists has been stormed by gunmen, with hostages taken.

(Via Daily Mail) […] Shots were heard by local residents near Le Campement Kangaba, to the eastern edge of the Malian capital Bamako, with plumes of smoke also seen billowing into the air.

(more…)

Alarming to YOU, but not necessarily to the White House fundraising team headed to Palm Springs.

Against the videos of thousands of Iraqi troops being road-marched by ISIS islamists fighters, new reports outline 1,700 of them may have ended with a mass execution:

Screenshot official ISIS account that claims they executed 1700 Shiite soldiers. They surrendered in #Tikrit ystrdy pic.twitter.com/7QyMnEuAAo

— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) June 13, 2014

Additionally WND is reporting the U.S. security contractors in Baland Air Force Base are surrounded by thousands of the islamists and are fighting them amid the chaos. (more…)

If Eli Lake leaves the Daily Beast you will see this level of exposition stop immediately.  Despite his leftist leanings on the subject of Libya and Islamic extremism Mr. Lake is perhaps the most accurate of all reporters on the specifics.  We  give him props for swimming against the tide of his colleges and outlining the falsehoods present in the Obama ‘head-in-the-sand’ hypocrisy around Islam.  -SD

(Via Eli Lake – Daily Beast) In 2012, the Obama administration produced a draft National Intelligence Estimate that reached a surprising conclusion: al Qaeda was no longer a direct threat to America. That classified assessment, which has never before been publicly disclosed, was in keeping with the message coming from the White House. President Obama rode to re-election in 2012 partly on the success of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. At rallies and in press conferences, the president and top officials publicly said al Qaeda was on the run.

But some senior U.S. intelligence officials, like Defense Intelligence Agency Director Gen. Michael Flynn, fought hard against that assessment, which amounted to an official pronouncement of the American intelligence community’s collected wisdom. Flynn and his faction won a partial victory, striking the judgment that the terrorist group no longer posed a threat to the homeland. “Flynn and others at the time made it clear they would not go along with that kind of assessment,” one U.S. intelligence officer who worked on the al Qaeda file told The Daily Beast. “It was basically: ‘Over my dead body.’” (more…)

Sometimes it helps to pause and reflect, then evaluate for yourself:

IRAN – In 2009, from the now infamous Cairo Speech, an uprising of the student led “Green Movement” striving for a voice amid the heavy hand of hard-line Islamist governance began.   President Obama chose to reach out to Iran’s leadership and ignored the calls for assistance from the young reformers.   The Green Party was killed.  The Mullahs reigned supreme.  Through inaction Obama sided with the Islamists.

TUNISIA – (Where the West claimed the “Arab Spring” began)  Tunis caught the global political elites off guard.  It should not have come as a surprise.  We were outlining the growing immigration powder keg for years.   Tunis exploded as a consequence of Ben Ali and Quadaffi taking billions from the EU to shut the immigration gates.
Simultaneously, in the WEST, the more willing to engage ‘New Media’ began to report the speeches from UK, France and Germany that Multi-culturalism had failed.   However, few connected the dots to Tunis and how the shutting of the North African gates created a bottleneck within Tunisia and Libya.   It was simply a matter of time before economic anxiety exploded within the cultural petri-dish.  It did, in a big way.
(more…)

Most people know al-Qaeda (as a terror entity) has evolved over the past 10+ years.   Recently the Obama administration has doggedly tried to parse and obfuscate around a principle that CORE al-Qaeda has been destroyed.

This claim is essential to framing any success around the Obama administration’s foreign policy and defense effort.     However, the claim is false and the success simply does not exist.

al-Qaeda is NOT on the run.

As a network of affiliated enterprises, with the same ideological goal, it has grown in influence specifically as a direct result of their own evolutionary intentions.

CORE al-Qaeda, or a centralized body from which all decision making stemmed, was never their intent.   al-Qaeda intended for terrorism to be “cellular” or operationally self-sustaining and widespread.    Bin Laden specifically intended the network to be a group of ideologically aligned but unaffiliated franchises all working on a common approach. (more…)

For followers of the Libyan fiasco, and we are not talking about Benghazi, the irony behind Dear Leader and Susan Rice’s recent statements on South Sudan is, well, beyond rich.

[…]  In a letter to Congress, Obama said that about 46 U.S. troops were deployed Saturday to help evacuate Americans. That’s in addition to another 45 troops deployed to reinforce the U.S. Embassy in Juba.

[…]  Earlier Sunday, Obama was briefed by advisers on events in South Sudan following a meeting that his national security adviser, Susan Rice, held with national security aides and U.S. personnel still in South Sudan.

[…]  “I may take further action to support the security of U.S. citizens, personnel, and property, including our Embassy, in South Sudan,” Obama wrote. (link)

I’m just going to cut this down to brass tacks.
The latest international storylines seem to be revolving around chaos reigning supreme in South Sudan.    Over the weekend four members of the U.S. military were shot by machine gun fire as they attempted to evacuate the R2P crowd of U.S. do-gooders.

Fair enough.    But why is the media avoiding the brutally obvious?    Oh yeah, wouldn’t want to actually connect dots and seem all conspiracy minded.
Then again, failure to talk about the 20,000+ missing Libyan missiles, and massive stockpiles of missing WMD (gas et al), does not protect you from the reality of it. (more…)

….. “um, just because the cat had kittens in the oven, it don’t make em’ biscuits”…

There are many people talking about President Obama and Secretary of State, John Kerry, being so willing to sell out Israel by negotiating with Iran.
Indeed a deal to let the Iranians’ off the sanction hook was damn near pulled off, were it not for the French.
Yes, you read that right, France – the quasi socialist fromage’ nation which has elected an avowed Socialist to it’s head, yet the body electorate is increasingly returning to nationalism.  Go figure…..
…..But, well, then again, we have a right-of-center U.S. electorate body right here who have re-elected a self aware socialist in our White House.   Strange times, strange times.  I must digress.
The point is – were it not for France, President Obama and John Kerry would have given the Iranian Mullahs a win.   Why?
Despite the geo-political international 3-D chess game which might be sold as an explanation, nothing could be further from the truth.   Obama just needed a win – any win.
When you look historically at five year Political Obama, when the media pundits line up to deconstruct him [see obamacare] he will pull off a distraction for no other reason than to put a perceived BIG DEAL in his immediate resume’.
The deal is given a bold headline so the resume’ reader does not note the failure just afore it. (more…)

You have probably seen multiple written accounts, stories and publish articles, recently about a growing international backlash.   This stems from revelations that under the specific direction of President Obama  the NSA (National Security Agency) has been spying upon a growing contingent of international leaders. 
Our allies are furious with the NSA for spying on them and their respective leaders.   Consequently U.S. credibility and trust has been deconstructed.
Indeed, by recent count the list of Allied Western nations rising in open opposition to President Obama, and his administration, stands around 35.  That’s THIRTY FIVE.
It is against that bold and visible backdrop we wish to draw back your attention.

In July of 2012, during his Term-two presidential bid, President Obama gave a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nevada. His speech was specifically constructed to outline his accomplishments:

“Because we’re leading around the world, people have a new attitude toward America.” “There’s more confidence in our leadership. We see it everywhere we go.”
– Barack Obama July 2012

At the time many of us just about fell out of our seats. With quick dispatch, and working purely from immediate memory, we outlined the following:

[2012]  There are many administration claims that I shake my head when I hear, but this one is perhaps the worst. It is a complete and utter fallacy to proclaim President Obama’s foreign policy has been even remotely successful. This is just freestyle off the top of my head, but consider: (more…)